I couldn't help but reflect today on the
words of a great actor ... a Californian ... a man who has been acclaimed
as the possessor of a wry wit ... credited with now and then uttering
some profound political advice ... I refer, of course, to the esteemed
statesman, W. C. Fields ... who said that, on the whole, he would rather
be in Philadelphia.

This is a good place for Democrats to
meet. I'm proud to be one of you ... always have been. And I've always
been proud of the role my party has played in shaping the guardianship
of our natural treasures ... my grandfather and my Dad always told me
as a boy that one of the best things we could do was to leave the earth
a bit better than we found it. That's been among my fundamental beliefs
... and you've helped me along the way.

For two decades now, the whole conservation
effort has been reduced to a few phrases ... can we have oil and clean
beaches? Mountains and coal? Jobs and clean water?

I would submit to you that that never
has been the argument. We all know it. We all know which party is willing
to make tradeoffs for a recession, for unemployment and all the rest.

But if that's the challenge we must face,
then face it we will. I won't run from a fight, and I know you won't,
either.

I'm reminded, in fact, that it was a Republican
who relished challenge with it came to conservation, and he's a Republican
we remember and revere ... Teddy Roosevelt.

To paraphrase John Kennedy ... "The
administration of the Interior Department has the greatest bunch of conservationists
ever assembled ... with the possible exception of when Teddy Roosevelt
dined alone."

TR reminds us that there was a time when
Republican Presidents cared about the land ... Roosevelt used to refer
to this country's natural resources as part of a "sacred trust."
For most of this century, Democratic and Republican Administrations alike
have treated our public lands and our environment the same way.

Even Richard Nixon -- you may recall the
name -- proposed the creation of an agency to protect the environment,
and that's what we know it as today: the Environmental Protection Agency.
He did it with encouragement and help from Democrats, But the point is,
he did it.

When Gerald Ford was President, we had
differences with him about strip mining. He vetoed two of our bills. Still,
we had a friend in a Ford man named Nat Reed.

In the Nixon years, we had Wally Hickel.

When Republicans have been in the White
House, we've always had someone who would listen.

In this Administration,
I can't name a single figure with any firm, conservation-oriented background.
Not one.

This Administration isn't listening.

It isn't even listening to conservationists
within its own party.

Listen to Dan Lufkin, from a letter to
President Reagan:

"Mr. President, I am not some 'environmental
nut' as some of your advisers seem to regard all who care about the
environment. I am a lifetime Republican, a strong supporter of the Reagan-Bush
ticket, a businessman, a longtime advocate of the strengthening of states'
rights, responsibilities and powers, a former State Commissioner of
Environmental Protection in the state of Connecticut, and, what to me
is most ironic, chairman of the task force you established as President-elect
to advise you on the environment."

And the punchline: "What the Administration
is doing in environmental affairs is crazy."

Russell Peterson, the president of the
National Audubon Society, is a good Republican and a former Delaware governor.
He had to wait a full year for an appointment at the White House. Once
he got in, he got a few minutes of polite conversation.

The Los Angeles Times, a Republican
newspaper, was among the first to ask for the resignation of James Watt.
"Watt should be sent back to his legal foundation," the Times
editorialized last June, "to plead the case for his clients from
the outside again, where he belongs."

The National Wildlife Federation, considered
by many to be the most politically conservative outdoors organization,
called on the President in July to fire Watt. "Mr. Watt is out of
step," wrote the group, "with the mainstream of American thought
on conservation issues."

Just this past week, the Conservation
Foundation, another conservative organization that numbers financiers
and industrialists among its membership, reported that "the bipartisan
consensus that supported federal protection of the environment for more
than a decade had been broken by an Administration that has given priority
to deregulation, defederalization and defunding domestic programs."

Tough language.

But it shows that when we're talking about
conservation, there is no such thing as a Republican river or a Democratic
park.

The environmental policies of this Administration
are the policies of neglect. They do not have the support of the American
people. They will leave a legacy of ruin and they certainly violate what
Teddy Roosevelt called our "sacred trust."

We hear a lot from this Administration
about having to clean up "the mess left from the last 40 years."
But the last 40 years includes 18 years of Republican Presidents. When
it comes to conservation, I'll trade anything over the last 40 years to
what this Administration will leave behind.

"The mess of the last 40 years?"
What are these Republicans talking about? Let me remind you:

The Clean Air Act.

The Clean Water Act.

The Environmental Protection Agency.

The Toxic Substances Control Act.

The Alaska Lands Bill.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act.

The doubling of our national forests
and parklands.

Reclaimed land.

Cut pollution.

The enactment of critical public health
safeguards.

That's part of the list.

To most Democrats and most Republicans,
it is a list of responsible, and responsive, actions.

To this Administration, it is only part
of a mess.

And what this Administration is talking
about today is not a tune-up. We're talking about taking apart the whole
machine, engine, tires, seats, steering wheel and all.

By 1984, this Administration wants to
cut the EPA budget by 60 percent, a 47 percent cut in staff and reduce
research budgets by 43 percent.

What is so frightful ... what is so fearful
... about the EPA research budget?

I have some thoughts about what's frightful.

The EPA has identified 2,000 chemicals
that may pose a danger to our health.

That's frightful.

Each year, this country generates more
than 40 million tons of hazardous wastes, and every year, there are more
than 150,000 reported violations of safe drinking standards.

That's frightful.

Every year, more acid rain destroys more
farmland, more timber stands.

That's frightful.

Every year, our demand for mineral resources
increases and this Administration now seeks to return us to those good
old days of scarred landscapes, polluted streams, floods and landslides.

That's frightful.

For the past 20 years, most Republicans
and most Democrats have worked alongside one another to protect our wilderness
from oil and mineral exploration.

That's changed.

This Administration wants to open our
wilderness to oil and gas leasing. It wants to prevent any new wilderness
designations. It wants to open existing wilderness lands to mineral leasing
by the year 2000.

Is that what the American people want?

Is that what our children want?

Good Lord ... is that
what Teddy Roosevelt had in mind when he talked about our "sacred
trust?"

No!

There are still Republicans who are with
us when it comes to the work we have to do for clean air, clean water
and the protection of our land.

But you won't find any of those Republicans
in this Administration.

What that means to all of us here for
his conference. . . is that we, the members of the Democratic Party, now
have an even more special obligation.

We will ask our Republican friends --
and there are many -- to join us.